BEIJING — China's shoddy product safety record took another hit Wednesday after Japanese importers recalled toothpaste containing a chemical used in antifreeze, a move that came on the heels of accusations by a U.S. company that its Chinese partner was supplying faulty tires.

ANITA CHANG

BEIJING — China's shoddy product safety record took another hit Wednesday after Japanese importers recalled toothpaste containing a chemical used in antifreeze, a move that came on the heels of accusations by a U.S. company that its Chinese partner was supplying faulty tires.

Coupled with the latest international concerns was an announcement that inspectors had closed 180 food factories. China's food safety watchdog said formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax were being used to make candy, pickles, crackers and seafood, the official China Daily newspaper reported.

China is fighting to overcome intense criticism for exporting unsafe products ahead of next summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, a great source of national pride. Authorities in China have pushed for more stringent controls and increased publicity of their efforts to control the problem.

Chinese-made toothpaste has been rejected by several countries in North and South America and Asia, while Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine was blamed for dog and cat deaths in North America. Other products turned away or recalled by U.S. authorities include toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

On Wednesday, three Japanese importers recalled millions of Chinese-made travel toothpaste sets, many sold to inns and hotels, after they were found to contain as much as 6.2 percent of diethylene glycol. The same chemical set off numerous recalls in other countries.

The chemical is a thickening agent used in antifreeze, and is also used as a low-cost — and sometimes deadly — substitute for glycerin, a sweetener in many drugs.

There were no reports of health problems stemming from the toothpaste. Chinese officials have said tests carried out in 2000 by Chinese experts proved that toothpaste containing less than 15.6 percent diethylene glycol was harmless.

Meanwhile, U.S. regulators ordered Foreign Tire Sales Inc., of Union, N.J., to recall as many as 450,000 tires after the company said an unknown number of light truck radials imported from Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. could suffer tread separation.

The U.S. company, which has imported light truck radials from the Chinese company since 2002, said an unknown number of the tires it sold were made without a safety feature, called a gum strip, which helps bind the belts of a tire to each other.

Hangzhou Zhongce denied Wednesday that it supplied faulty products. In a statement, the company said its tires met U.S. safety standards and Foreign Tire Sales' specifications, accusing the U.S. company of making the claim to gain an advantage in a commercial dispute.

A nationwide crackdown on shoddy and dangerous products, launched in December, uncovered the 180 Chinese factories that were using industrial chemicals in food production, China Daily said.

"These are not isolated cases," said Han Yi, an official with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The admission by Han, director of the administration's quality control and inspection department, was significant because the agency has said in the past that safety violations were the work of a few rogue operators, a claim that is likely part of a strategy to protect China's billions of dollars of food exports.

Han said most of the offending manufacturers were small, unlicensed food plants with fewer than 10 employees, and all had been shut down. China Daily said 75 percent of China's estimated 1 million food processing plants are small and privately owned.

According to Han, the ongoing inspections are focusing on commonly consumed food such as meat, milk, beverages, soy sauce and cooking oil. Rural areas and the suburbs — where standards are often less strict — are still considered key areas for inspectors, he said.

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